Atlas
by SkyandIris
Summary: "You don't always have to carry the weight of the world, Olivia." In a world without Peter Bishop, nine year old Olivia Dunham pulls the trigger one final time.


**A/N: This is an edited repost, basically my dark-ish AU take on Olivia in a Peter-less world. ****I wrote this over two years ago, so obviously some things are a bit different than they actually turned out. **

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**Atlas.**

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It isn't her mother he hits that night. This time, it's Rachel.

She thinks that maybe it was over the pull tabs. She doesn't know for certain, because the things that anger him have become so trivial that by the time he's done, she's usually forgotten the all-important question of _why_. But Rachel is little, and there's a small mountain of empty cans on the counter, just within her reach. A half-full can next to his chair. She carefully peels off the shiny tabs.

Neatly lines them all up on the floor. They glint in the light and Rachel is enthralled.

All she knows is that he goes after Rachel.

She doesn't know much about people anymore. Her mother can usually be found at either end of a medicine-induced haze or a drunken stupor. She supposes it's because she can't bear to see what he's done to them. Sometimes he goes away for days at a time, and Marilyn Dunham takes her two daughters to the park, or to zoo, and buys them slushies and chocolate cookies. She smiles, but her heart isn't quite in it, and their happiness is dull, but there.

He pushes her out of the way, jarring her still-aching ribs and she unintentionally bites down on her lip. The dried blood cracks, and she winces as the tang of blood reenters her mouth.

Rachel is standing in the hallway, her pull tabs scattered around her. Her eyes are bright, she makes her fingers dance against the shadows .

Her mother takes another pill.

It only takes one swing. Rachel looks up at him, stunned, as her hands fall limply at her sides. She slowly touches her nose, and her fingers come back sticky and wet. Too stunned to cry.

He had poked his finger on the sharp metal that a tab had left behind.

Sitting down for a drink after yet another round with his oldest stepdaughter, leaving her to wipe the blood from her chin and finger the bruises that would later form. Take measured breaths to keep her ribs from stinging. She isn't sure how much longer they can take this.

When he goes after Rachel, she is.

As he storms out, she grabs a wad of towel, brings it to her sister's nose. She hears his truck driving away as she guides Rachel into the bathroom.

She tells her that it's okay, hold it like this and it will stop the blood. Rachel is now hysterical. Her tears leak down her face and her chest is heaving and her hands are clenched in little fists. Olivia pushes her down onto the toilet seat, unfurls her fingers and presses it to her face. Rachel had never been hit before. Rachel didn't know what to do.

She steps back into the hallway. To lean against the wall, to fight back the tears and the fear and the _rage_.

Her mother leans her forehead against the table.

Rachel hiccups a sob in the bathroom.

Around the sounds of her own heavy breathing, she hears his truck turn around.

The gun is in her hands before she _really _realizes what she has decided to do. She stops in front of the bathroom door to glance in at her sister. Rachel is gasping, the blood a deep red as it leaks through the tissue.

She wads up more towel, slides it behind Rachel's fingers. Hides the gun behind her so Rachel doesn't see.

She closes the bathroom door. And she waits.

Maybe he expected to see her there. His face doesn't acknowledge any emotion when he finds her standing across from him.

Surprise, however, flickers across his face as she raises the gun.

She will later wonder if he saw the tremble in her fingers.

The house is quiet.

Rachel's sobs have quieted, Marilyn sits quietly in her own little world.

The gunshot shatters the silence. And then the second. The third.

His final glance is spared for her, the half-smirk of a dead man as he slumps to the floor.

He was _impressed_.

Her fingers shake so violently that the gun drops to the ground. Her ears are ringing. The clock chimes, but nothing moves.

The darkness she feels is stifling. Smothering her as she dry heaves and gasps as she realizes what she'd just done.

Then, she's on the floor. She's still shaking, but this time _she _isn't causing it.

Her mother is on top of her, screaming things she can't quite understand. Her ears still ring and her ribs ache and she's not sure if it's the pain or the relief dulling her senses.

Her mother's face is red, twisted, contorted as she straddles her body.

She asks her what she's _done_. Asks her _why_. How _could _she?

And then Marilyn cries.

Bends over her daughter, her hair falling like a curtain over them. A semblance of protection she had never offered.

Presses a kiss to her daughter's face. Green eyes trained on the ceiling, tears leaking from their corners onto the linoleum.

Marilyn breathes her in before she stumbles up, walks in a daze towards the bedroom.

Olivia calls 911.

Rachel is still in the bathroom. Her eyes watery and swollen, the towels discarded on the sink. Relieved to see her sister at the door, alive and breathing.

Olivia diligently scrubs the counter clean before she wraps her arms around Rachel, sinking together to the bathroom floor. She kisses her sister's head, squeezes her tightly as her heart pounds and her entire body shakes.

Rachel clutches the fabric of her gray shirt, tucking her head under her chin and burying her face in her shoulder.

When the police come, they slowly extract them apart. But Rachel cries and kicks and makes her nose start to bleed again. Olivia bullies her way back to her sister.

No one dares to argue.

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Her stepfather is zipped up, taken away. She has never felt so relieved.

She tells him exactly what she'd done, Rachel's blood and tears soaking her shirt as her head presses into her broken ribs.

She insists she's fine. _Rachel _is the one who's bleeding. _Their mother _is the one who's cracking. Olivia Dunham is fine.

He looks troubled. The officer walks away, and he's soon replaced by another.

Her hair is pulled tight, but her smile is kind, and she manages to coax Rachel away. Someone leads her younger sister towards the flashing lights outside. She hears her mother arguing with another officer behind her.

The woman's kind eyes bore into hers, simply waiting. For her to turn into a blubbering mess or to have some other extreme display of emotion, she's sure. The woman does not yet know that Olivia Dunham is not a tantrum-throwing child.

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They tell her it's only for a little while. Their mother needs help and they need stability.

Rachel doesn't understand why they need to be separated.

There are more tears as Rachel squeezes closer, digging her head into Olivia's ribs.

The sun is setting and the sky is beautiful. Lit up by blue and red lights.

It takes two cops to drag their mother from the house. She is hysterical, begging, like an ice cold bucket had washed over her and she was seeing clearly for the first time in years.

Her pleading eyes train on her daughters, two blonde heads huddled next to an ambulance.

Regret. Promise.

The female cop must work some kind of magic. The two Dunham girls are led to a patrol car and they both squeeze into the front seat.

The sirens make Rachel grin.

She watches the town slide by. Places she and Rachel used to play. Where their father used to carry them on his shoulders.

The hospital feels cold. The walls are white, and everyone looks at them with an indescribable emotion. Olivia thinks it's pity, and she hates them for it.

She silently wonders if this is how zoo animals feel. They take pictures of her, poke and prod, draw blood. She tries to mask the pain, but they give her something and her ribs no longer throb.

She almost misses the ache.

Rachel comes back with a sticker on her elbow, her nose no longer crooked and a dopey smile.

She stares at the wall, with it's cheerfully painted animals and remembers her daycare in Jacksonville.

It's a distant memory. A boy named Nick with his arms outstretched next to hers, and a man who always seemed to be scrutinizing them. Then, something else.

The memory is gone before it even solidifies, and Olivia lets her head rest against the wall.

Soon, it is time to say goodbye. Only for a little while.

She doesn't believe in promises, so she holds her sister tighter.

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The female cop steps into the room, her eyes nervous as she glances back at the Dunham girls. Her posture is triumphant, but she _radiates_ uncertainty.

They go to her apartment.

The couch is transformed into a bed and Rachel's eyes no longer droop.

Rachel bounces on it for a few moments before falling into the mattress with a giggle. Olivia smiles shortly before sitting on the edge.

The woman tells them to call her Maggie. She makes hot chocolate and toast and turns on the TV and leaves the girls to themselves.

She wonders if Rachel will remember this, sitting on a strange woman's couch watching cartoons and painkillers making them light, or if it would fade away. The memories of their father, their _real _father, had become cloudy in her own mind.

She hopes Rachel forgets.

Maggie makes French toast in the morning, scoops vanilla ice cream on top and lets them eat in bed.

She frowns at her sister when a glob of syrup hits the white sheets. She's almost waiting for the anger, but Maggie just wipes it away and pats Rachel's leg.

Later, if she notices the bruises dotting her skin, she doesn't say. The bubbles cover most of them, but as Rachel makes imaginary ships float through them, she is very well aware of the two, large, hand-shaped ones on her shoulders.

She lets them soak until the water turns cold.

When they dry off, they have new clothes. Light pink for Rachel. Light purple for her.

She looks with longing and bitterness at her charcoal gray shirt as it goes into the trash, all while wondering when Maggie found the time to go shopping, or even figure out their sizes.

Maggie seems nervous. She fiddles with her hair and smiles too much and keeps offering them soda. She doesn't bother to tell her Rachel was too excitable already and wasn't allowed, and she herself found the sticky sweetness a little nauseating.

She presents them with two new backpacks filled with more clean clothes, toothbrushes, even teddy bears poking fuzzy heads through the top.

Someone is at the door for them.

Then, they live in another stranger's home, an older couple with kind eyes.

They make Rachel cookies and laugh and try to engage Olivia as well. Seemingly begging the older girl to trust them. She doesn't trust much anymore.

So when Marilyn returns, squeaky clean and sober, she can't muster up the excitement that Rachel seems to exude.

But she smiles anyways. Brushes and braids Rachel's hair, carefully ties the ribbons in. She tucks her own hair behind her ears without much fuss. She doesn't know if she's preparing for a celebration or a wake.

Marilyn is happy to see them. Everything is right. She's the mother they had before. But Olivia still doesn't trust the woman with the ghosts in her eyes.

She's glad she doesn't try to apologize. Words can't mend what was broken. Words can't replace the years they'd lost. Words can't take the last few years back.

Rachel doesn't forget. And two years later, they're back where they started.

Their mother is dying.

They sit in a lounge, their tongues burning from the hot chocolate and their hearts numb.

Their mother survived years of abuse. Survived to be taken away by what they thought was a common cold.

Pneumonia.

One day she's happy, burning grilled cheese sandwiches. Singing to oldies in the kitchen with her girls.

The next, she sneezes. Stays in bed a little longer. Orders Chinese takeout and makes her girls sit as far away as possible when they watch _Snow White_.

The day after that, her oldest daughter wakes up to find her collapsed in the bathroom.

Then, the hospital.

A doctor approaches them sadly, and Olivia _knows_. The nurses had coaxed them from the room with incredible patience and understanding. A social worker had been puttering around the halls for hours.

Rachel asks what will happen to them.

Olivia is at a loss, pulls her sister tighter.

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End file.
